October 23, 2003 – The FIS Cross Country  World Cup season starts this weekend in downtown Düsseldorf, Germany. Snow will  be trucked in to make a sprint course for individual races on Saturday and  sprint relays on Sunday. The Canadian team won't participate due to the cost  financially and and loss of training and recovery time involved with this  one weekend event. that is occurring well before the next World Cup races  towards the end of November.

Results are available at http://snurl.com/dusseldorf

Some  of the Canadian eam are next travelling to Alaska for some early snow training  and some US FIS races with the team heading later in November to Sovereign  Lakes/Silver Star BC for some more early season training and the NorAm Canada  Cups. Beckie Scott and Sara Renner will be the only athletes that participate on  the pre Christmas World Cup circuit.